Falling Light (Game of Shadows #2)(35)

“I really think it’s possible,” she said again, softly. “When I was looking at the two men, I could sense how the body and spirit were supposed to fuse together. But I can’t promise you anything. All I can do is ask if you want to try. Even if we did succeed, taking over a drone’s body would be a strange life for you, and I think in a lot of ways it would be a difficult one. What do you think? Are you willing at least to consider it?”

The hand he rested on his upraised knee tightened into a fist.

He said, Yes.

• • •

NICHOLAS LEFT TO go back to his father’s side, taking his powerful, whirlwind emotions with him.

Left alone, she slumped back against the cold wall again until she started to shiver. The end of her braid had unraveled. She searched through the blankets and cushions until she found the rubber band. She snapped it back on the end of her tangled hair.

Then, starving, thirsty and curious, she climbed to her feet, shook out the top blanket and wrapped the bulky material sarong-like around her torso. With one hand, she held the blanket so she wouldn’t trip over the edges. With the other, she held it anchored across her br**sts. It was an awkward way to try to keep covered.

The bare floorboards were so cold they made the bones of her feet ache, but that couldn’t be helped. Her sodden socks and shoes were unfit to wear.

She stepped gingerly into the kitchenette and glanced around.

Not a kitchenette. Remember, think nautical. This would be a galley. Whatever, the galley was a kitchenette. A small refrigerator was built into the wall. She unlatched the door and peered inside, unsurprised but disappointed to find it empty.

When she saw Michael’s knife resting in its battered leather sheath on the table, she took the blanket, folded it in half and used the long blade to saw a slit through the middle of the fold. Then she poked her head through the slit to wear it like a poncho. The corners still dragged on the ground, but it covered better than before.

She looked for her clothes and shoes. Neither her nor Michael’s things were anywhere to be found. That seemed to be her cue to exit.

She ascended the stairs to the deck.

The first thing she saw was the placid surface of the Lake, glimmering in the silvery early morning light. The sun had yet to appear on the horizon. A thin layer of clouds draped across the pale sky like the last people to leave an all-night party. Land curved to either side of her, rising into a sharp incline from a rocky shore where gentle waves lapped at a jumble of rocks. The incline was covered with a thick cluster of pine trees and a tangle of underbrush.

The boat had been moored alongside a weathered pier, the nose pointed toward land, opposite a smaller, battered motorboat. As she gained the surface of the deck, she realized the pier was located in the relative shelter of a small, shallow bay.

Her socks and dingy jeans, the bullet-torn flannel shirt and her shoes were arranged on the deck to dry in the open air. Michael’s clothes had been spread out beside hers.

She heard quiet voices. As she turned the corner of the cabin, a steady breeze ruffled the edges of her makeshift poncho and brought with it the acrid scent of wood smoke. She shivered and pulled the wool closer around her torso.

At the land end of the pier there was a space of beach more or less level and cleared of rock. A path with rough staggered steps led from the beach up the incline into the woods. Michael and a tiny old woman were on the beach, sitting on two large, sawed-off logs in front of a small campfire.

Her gaze lingered on Michael. He wore rumpled black cotton pants with a drawstring waist and a flannel-lined anorak. His chest and feet were bare. Looking weary but relatively peaceful, he leaned forward to feed sticks to the bright, flickering flame. He was relaxed. Seeing that, she relaxed too.

Her attention left him and centered on the old woman, who leaned her elbows on knees almost as thin as the sticks that Michael fed to the fire. The ground around the woman was littered with bags, two thermos flasks and food containers. Her short white hair stood around her head in wild, fluffy wisps. She wore canvas mules without socks, baggy sweatpants, an overlarge knit sweater and a denim jacket that was at least a couple of decades old.

It was such a small frail body to house such a strong will. Mary swallowed in an effort to ease her dry throat and hesitated. For the first time, she realized she was jealous of the old woman, and afraid.

She hadn’t made any noise discernable over the Lake’s constant murmuring, but the pair on the shore looked in her direction at the same time.

Michael stood. “Good morning,” he said. His quiet voice carried over the water. “How are you feeling? Do you need help?”

Now she was on her feet and had been moving around, she wasn’t feeling as steady as she would have liked. Still, she shook her head. Under the combined weight of their gazes, she found a space in the boat’s railing where a hinged bar had been propped open. She stepped onto the pier.

A sharp gust of wind lifted a flap of the blanket and exposed the long line of one slender, honey-colored leg up to her waist. Though her thin nylon panties didn’t offer much cover, she was grateful she wasn’t totally nude under the poncho. She gripped the edges of the recalcitrant blanket to hold it in place as she walked toward the waiting pair.

The old woman watched her progress with a neutral expression. Her wrinkled face was classic. Mary could see in it the ghost of the beautiful woman who had appeared in her vision and the dream. With a pronounced bone structure and high cheeks, she could have been at home on an American Indian reservation, or a Greek island, or the streets of Moscow.